Case Study Part 2: Then Came A Forcing Function (11/100)

Struggling with three possible business directions, a Forcing Function triggered a breakthrough for me... continued from last week's newsletter, "Case Study Part 1: Where Aaron Went Wrong (10/100)"

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When I married in 2011 (my 2nd), everything changed. I went from being single with low expenses to having a partner and two children. I moved into their two bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. Within a couple of months, we also had a new baby on the way. We and the kids needed a bigger apartment. I had been an early employee at Salesforce.com, but "not early enough" and I started at such a junior role that I had had very little equity. I'd made enough money there to mostly pay off some divorce debt and take some time off, but I still had to work.

So: with a growing family and expenses, we could uproot our kids and ourselves and move from (relatively expensive) Santa Monica to a cheaper area, but the kids' schools and friends were there, as were many of our important relationships.

Or -

I could grow my business to figure out how to make more money to support an expanding family.

I chose growth.

And I kept choosing growth as we continued to add children to our family, either through adoption or biologically, year after year, and had to move to bigger and bigger houses and pay for rapidly expanding family bills. Some adoptions were easy, some difficult. We made the child / family decision first, and made the money follow. Hasn't been easy (whether emotionally, physically or financially), but worth it.

    Building & supporting a family of 10 children in 10 years, 
   of various ages, ethnicities and origins has been insane and 
     irrational (in a good way), but that's the next book :)         

To grow our income, I couldn't just throw hours at the problem. I had to pick the niche that would be the easiest to make money with. I also couldn’t afford the luxury of avoiding the truth that what I was most passionate about (Unique Genius and CEOFlow) were, painfully, still nice-to-haves to others. Given more time and energy, I could figure out the who, how, and where in order to make them need-to-haves. But I didn’t have that time or energy. It'd be much faster to multiply what had already worked...

While I'd previously resisted going 100% into it...I was most in-demand from CEOs that needed to grow sales. I finally published the Predictable Revenue book and took the plunge to focus (specialize) in helping companies build outbound sales teams.

I’d held back from going "all in" on this before, as I'd seen sales consulting as something still to pay the bills while I developed the other ideas. I put every other business or fun idea, all my nice-to-haves, on the backburner indefinitely.

I've been asked many times about how I write books, or how long they take. They've all been different. To write and publish Predictable Revenue took:

• Six years of baby steps in blogging (funny enough, I started while at Salesforce.com and blogging was banned!)
• Three days to put a full book draft together
• Three months to edit, design, and self-publish (I used LightningSource)

I’d been ignoring the experience and skills that made me the most marketable, where I had a unique expertise to create results for customers, just because I wanted to do something new and sexier than the “sales” or “prospecting” work I’d already done for years. Having a family forced changed my attitude from 'sales was boring' to 'results are sexy'.

   I’d been ignoring the skills that made me the most marketable.        

Once I specialized in serving business-to-business companies with $1m+ in revenue, who needed to grow, business picked up. My rates went up by 10× too by specializing. I mean, who do you think earns more, a general practice doctor or a neurosurgeon?

Ironically, besides going through it myself, it’s been talking or working with so many product and services companies over the years who thought they were ready to grow, but weren’t, that I learned this lesson of "Nailing A Niche." I’ve seen how common this problem is, and why without nailing this down first, spending money on lead generation and sales is going to feel like pushing a string.

PS: If you’re a parent juggling career and family, the very last section of the Impossible book is“Aaron, How the Hell Do You Juggle Ten Kids and Work?”

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Observations: I committed 100% emotionally to my partner and her two children - who then became my children. There's nothing like having to support the people you love not just emotionally, but financially, to create a constant, never-ending motivation to make money.

When people ask me about my secrets to success / making more money, I answer "have a lot of kids!" I'm only partly joking. Then you have to figure it out!

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NEXT WEEK: Your Current Strength Can Be a Future Weakness

PRIOR POST:?"Case Study Part 1: Where Aaron Went Wrong (10/100)"